Gestalt on 31/12/2006 at 17:06
Here's something from a (
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/12/30/saddam/index_np.html) Salon article I thought was interesting:
Quote:
The tribunal also had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam's hanging. It was a slap in the face to Sunni Arabs. This weekend marks Eid al-Adha, the Holy Day of Sacrifice, on which Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son for God. Shiites celebrate it Sunday. Sunnis celebrate it Saturday –- and Iraqi law forbids executing the condemned on a major holiday. Hanging Saddam on Saturday was perceived by Sunni Arabs as the act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar.
The timing also allowed Saddam, in his farewell address to Iraq, to pose as a “sacrifice” for his nation, an explicit reference to Eid al-Adha. The tribunal had given the old secular nationalist the chance to use religious language to play on the sympathies of the whole Iraqi public.
The political ineptitude of the tribunal, from start to finish, was astonishing. The United States and its Iraqi allies basically gave Saddam a platform on which to make himself a martyr to Iraqi unity and independence -- even if by unity and independence Saddam was really appealing to Sunnis' nostalgia for their days of hegemony.
I don't see this as any kind of moral victory or important milestone on the road towards closure and peace, or whatever some people are trying to spin it as. The timing seems to have been specifically chosen to increase tension between the two major religious factions.
frozenman on 1/1/2007 at 01:43
Romantic comedy starring Matthew Perry, who plays a wily NBC war correspondent thrust into Iraq in late 2006. While there he falls in love with a quiet Iraqi woman who turns out to be a distant niece of Saddam Hussein. HANGING SADDAM, coming to a theatre near you.
Aerothorn on 1/1/2007 at 02:53
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
Then you're wrong to describe yourself as an opponent of the death penalty.
No, he's not. He'd be wrong to to describe himself as opposed to the killing of people - but he didn't. He said he opposed the death penalty, which is a part of the legal/justice system. And it's a fact that X percent (what percent, no one knows) of the people executed in the USA, or any other country, are innocent of the crimes they have been executed for. So some people are opposed to the death penalty on this basis, even if, in a land of mind-readers and known guilt, they would support it. I don't know how else to explain it. He said he was against it. Who are you to tell him he isn't?
SD on 1/1/2007 at 03:15
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
He said he was against it. Who are you to tell him he isn't?
I didn't - he said it himself (
I have no problem whatsoever with executing the guilty and evil). If you're perfectly happy giving the death penalty to people whose guilt is not in question, then in no way can you be opposed to the death penalty. Pretty fucking simple, no matter what nursery school semantics you try to twist it with.
Turtle on 1/1/2007 at 08:27
So would you be happy/shut up if he said he was against the <i>current implementation of the death penalty</i>?
mopgoblin on 1/1/2007 at 10:28
Quote Posted by Pyrian
To build a consensus and get something done, it's better to compromise with the people who agree with you for different reasons than to isolate yourself through stubbornness.
I don't really see how you would argee with me. I agree with some of what you've said ("Justice systems are not and can never be perfect"), but as far as I can tell, you don't seem to agree with my main argument (roughly "Good guys try not to kill people").
Quote:
In the long run, you're just reducing the potential appeal of your argument as well as the immediate appeal.
I don't think the potential appeal is harmed. And regarding practical value, I see more long-term practical value in the notion that the death penalty is intrinsically wrong, rather the notion that the justice system can't be trusted with it (which suggests that it could be brought back if the justice system is made "good enough").
Gray on 21/1/2007 at 02:30
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
In any case, things really can't get any worse in Iraq than they are now.
I disagree.
Things are very likely to get a
lot worse, and fast. I hope I'm wrong.
